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Small fish, big ocean.

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That’s what the past week and a half or so has been for me. It’s gotten to the point – numerous times – where I’ve just wanted to close my eyes, put my hands over both of my ears, and scream, “STOP THE MADNESS!” Best Friend will get the inside joke there, if she reads this. It’s really not a joke though.

I guess it’s just been one of those, “When it rains . . .” bouts of time.

There’s just been madness in what seems to be every avenue and aspect of my life, ranging from small frustrations, to outright confusion, to absolute discord. A lot of that is my fault, I’ll admit, for being how I am. Such small things from flopping around again about what I want to do with my books, to gigantic things that I have no desire to talk about. I’m pretty sure I’ve got an uncountable amount of new gray hairs that will have to be covered up, just in the past ten days or so alone.

I’ve been hiding in my shed. I kind of realized about a week and a half ago that ‘hiding’ is what I do there, among other things. Being happy, being productive in the only way that I am, etc. I’ll admit without any issue that this past week, hiding has been the main priority there – hiding from life as much as I can. It works a little. Works better than anything else.

But I was struck yesterday that I can’t hide from most things. Acknowledgement, and acceptance.

I – partially intentionally and partially accidentally – messed up my sleep schedule so that I’ll be awake on days for a little while. I can’t write during the day, as I get bombarded with what I’ll politely call distractions. Basically, I’m forcing myself to take a pseudo-break. I’ll still be writing (yes, I’m writing), but I’m going to have to do some other things too. I asked Best Friend and her significant other to hang out with Husband and I tomorrow. I’m going to see my grandpa and have lunch with my parents. I’m going to be getting sucked farther into Diablo III with Husband. I’ve been trying, very hard, to get some things out and dealt with (though it’s difficult due to reasons that I have no control over).

Writing for me, generally, is healthy in most ways that matter (at least to me, which I’ve mentioned recently). But given all the nonsense and madness and . . . ugh . . . other things currently going on around me, I just can’t let myself do what I usually do. Can’t run and can’t hide from everything. It’s not healthy.

Anywho, that’s the reason for the lack of everything on here. I’ve been hiding.

Expect my usual Friday post tomorrow.

I really, genuinely, hope that everybody out there is having a fantastic day. I really do. The world needs a bit more good and fantasticality.

I had some fun. I had some revelations. It was an experience, for sure.

One of the first revelations will be one of the last that I mention on here.

The following one: I might have to do some spelling lessons with my niece when she returns.

My next revelation was that Florida during the rainy season is quite unpleasant at times, and somewhat scary at others. I recorded a video, but have no intention of posting it.

My disdain for Spanish Moss has not lessened in severity since leaving Georgia several years ago. No offense to those who are fans of it, but it just disgusts me. I have a horrible daymare about a big chunk of it falling from a tree, such as the one below, and landing on my head.

Something completely unexpected was (what my friend J calls) a magnificent little plot bunny hopping around in front of my face, while looking out very early into the trip at the scenery below and hearing a story about a certain bird. (If you follow me on Twitter, that is the lamppost I mentioned on there as well, though from a different angle).

Beach Day Number 1 was fun. My sister and I went alone and alternated between laying out, and walking around in the water.

We then shared a giant platter of fried seafood (and fries) after, which was lovely. Our waiter needed a haircut.

Dogs, generally, love me. The latter of those below followed me around the entire time while at the house. He tried to sleep on the bed with me one night and was so insistent on staying there that he had to be picked up and carried away. Poor thing. And yes, those are two different dogs. They are both thirteen or fourteen years old, believe it or not.

Beach Day Number 2 involved several people and LOTS of rain. Needless to say, I have no pictures of during. It rained on us the entire time. I had children holding my hands (which was strange, but made me wonder if I MIGHT NOT be so horrendous at dealing with them when I possibly have my own one day). I got the crap beat out of me by waves (which was a good laugh). All in all, it was a startlingly fun time. I’m glad there was no lightning, or else the time wouldn’t have happened at all.

The picture below is of my grogginess waking up on Beach Day Number 3. Those are my favorite sunglasses. They broke, shortly after I took this picture.

I am expecting some pictures of BDN3 to appear in my email at some point, but as of now, I have none. That was another day with many people. Another revelation I had that day: My social anxiety has NOT lessened. I nearly had a panic attack due to the COPIOUS amounts of people on the beach. It was not pretty. Not at all. Well, the BEACH was pretty, but me on the beach? Not so much!

Later on, after it rained (which cleared out most of the people), my sister and I walked around in the water, looking for seashells. She found the best ones, but she let me have them.

Beach Day Number 4 was only me and my sister again (yes, I know that is not the appropriate way to say that).

It was lots of fun, apart from some strange sand-bee things that were hovering around our laying-out-blanket. And, of course, the seagulls always make for a nervous time. Poo? No thank you. Also, some jerks tossing a football over people’s heads right before we left caused a bit of frustration. Anyway, that was the only day we saw dolphins. As mentioned in the last entry, my sister took 30 pictures of them while I was away for a few minutes. I will spare you of them all. If you see the little specks far off into the distance on the second picture – that’ll be the dolphins. Yes. Specks.

The last full day was the 4th of July. I was missing Husband terribly, dyed my hair again, and was then thrown around people I didn’t know, a couple more kids, etc., and was about fifty million different levels of uncomfortable. The picture below is me sitting in the car while the kids did things at a little carnival type . . . thing? My misery level was 9000.

But things got a little better (about 3 hours or so after that picture). Watched fireworks. Got a glow bracelet (hadn’t had one of those in a long time . . . I’ll disregard that it was yellow). Plus, I’d had some awesome blue cake earlier in the day, which was pretty great.

A few small things? I got an email from a friend that absolutely MADE one of my days. I spent some time with some awesome people. I found out that my favorite band, Geographer, will be playing close enough for me to see them. Yes, six hours of driving is close enough to see them. Don’t even talk to me about social anxiety; I will stomach it for them. I missed them the last time they were that close and I’ve been regretting it ever since.

Anywho, that was basically my trip.

But apart from realizing that I DO NOT LIKE BEING AWAY FROM MY HUSBAND, I also realized that my sister and I? Well, we can have a pretty dag on good time together. That was the best thing about all of it for me, which is what he’d hoped – for the two of us to get some quality time together. We did.

We drank a CRAPTON of coffee (though it was never as strong as I like). We laughed. We talked. We talked some more. She made jokes about her Flintstone feet; we then painted our toenails to match and had ‘chrome wheels’. She fishtail braided my hair (I’d never had it done, and she’d never done it). I made her listen to Mr. Roboto (WHO HASN’T HEARD THAT SONG?!). We listened to SO much music. We did a lot of talking.

I’ll tell you what . . . that plot bunny aside?

All of that stuff with my sister was the best part of the trip. And missing Husband (and having several anxiety-episodes) aside?

I’m a little over 36k words in on my new WIP – the one that I’ve actually been WORKING on. It took me a bit of time, but I’m finally getting pretty immersed into it which is both strange, and nice. It’s coming along. Still don’t know exactly where it’s going, but I’m hoping that the story lets me be done in one book, rather than four or six. I’m thinking I might tell different stories FROM that world in different books, but I can’t express how badly I want to resolve a specific character’s story quickly (even if only to prove to myself that I can do it).

So that’s why I’m behind on reading posts here. I’ve been writing, writing, writing – trying to find little moments here and there to catch up. I’m working on it.

It’s also why I haven’t asked for guest bloggers yet. Well that, partially, and because I’ve asked two of my friends (REAL LIFE FRIENDS! Yes, I have a few of those) to be the first ones. They’re both busy, but hopefully it will happen sometime relatively soon because they’re both exceptional (both as writers, and in general). Not saying that you’re not exceptional too. 🙂

I honestly don’t know how people manage to get so many things done while simultaneously doing other things. I feel like I’m running myself ragged right now. And it’s a LOT different this go-round (writing a book), now that I have so many other things to keep up with. The last time I was writing, I didn’t even have a cell phone. I got one during some stage of editing for the last series. Now I’ve got a phone which is constantly screaming game notifications at me (and the occasional text). Social networking, this blog. Writing a book, as many of you know, is such a consuming thing.

I’m trying to find a balance. Be patient with me . . . it might take me awhile.

I guess it’s just strange to me, wanting to crawl back into my little hermit-hole and feeling like I can’t do that anymore. This blog forces me to be OUT there when I want to retreat, and honestly? I’m grateful for that. It’s forcing me to realize that there is an entire world going on, outside of whatever world is taking place in my head at any given moment.

Change and adaptation are good things, as long as you’re changing/adapting in a positive way.

I need to learn how to balance. Hopefully it will happen.

In other news, I’m contemplating chopping all my hair off.

I’ve been thinking about a pixie cut for a very long time now, but I’m so worried. A) That I would hate it and spend three years of growing my hair out to fix it. B) That I will look like a boy. C) That people will take one look at my jawline and be like, “That chick could nom on some steel with that jaw.”

Husband is of no help with the decision. He would say he likes my hair short when it’s short, or long when it’s long. And of course my friends say that I’m being ridiculous, but how am I to know whether they’re saying that honestly or if they’re sitting there touching their fingers together and thinking, “You will look like a boy.” *cue internal maniacal laughter*